Ruth Meinzen-Dick Water Tenure: from Bundles of Rights to Webs of Interests. FAO Water Tenure Mondays Webinar October 25, 2021

1. Water Tenure: from
Bundles of Rights to Webs
of Interests
Ruth Meinzen-Dick
Environment and Production Technology Divisiion
FAO Water Tenure Mondays Webinar
25 October 2021

3. Images of Property Rights
Conventional
▪Rigid, unchanging
▪Divides people
▪State title
▪Ownership
▪Single user
Preferable
▪Fluid, dynamic
▪Connects people
▪Multiple sources
▪Bundles of rights
▪Multiple uses, users

4. Tenure security
▪ Breadth
oBundles of rights
▪ Duration
oSufficient time frame to reap benefits
▪ Assurance
oInstitutional framework capable of enforcing rights
oAbility to withstand challenges

5. Mentimeter question
▪ Which aspect of tenure security do you think is most important for
water tenure?
1. Breadth/ having more bundles of rights
2. Duration
3. Assurance

6. Bundles of Rights

7. State Collective Individual
Access
Management
Alienation
Public
Property
Private
Property
Classic Property Rights Systems
Withdrawal
Exclusion
Bundles of
Rights
Holder of Rights
Common
Property
?

8. Holders of Rights
▪ “Public”
▪ “Collective” or “Community”
▪ “Individual”

9. Holders of Rights
▪ “Public”
oGlobal public, e.g.
Ramsar convention
o National public, e.g.
Public Trust Doctrine
o“The State”
o Particular agencies,
e.g. Irrigation
Department
o Local government,
e.g. Panchayats
▪ “ “Collective”
o All residents of an area
o Defined user group,
e.g. Water User Group
o Tribe, clan, or lineage
oDoes chief hold
rights as individual
or as custodian for
a collective?
▪ “Individual”
o“Legal individual”, e.g.
corporation or firm
oHousehold
oExtended family
oNuclear family
oDoes “head” of
household hold rights
as individual or as
custodian for
members?
oIndividuals w/in hhold
oBy gender
oBy age/generation

10. Watering
flocks
State claims
Permission for
outsiders
Wells they built
Drawing water
Operating
pumps
Infrastructure management
Possible claimants in water tenure
Access
Management
Alienation
Withdrawal
Exclusion
State
Collective
Individual
Bundles
of Rights
Holder of Rights
Management
plans
Tribe/ User
groups
Man
Woman
Youth
House
hold
Clan
Irrigation
Dept
Local
Govt
Nonconsumptive
use (swimming)
Wells they built

11. Web of Interests
• Arnold: “the modern concept of property as a bundle of rights diminishes the
importance of the natural environment and the human relationship with the
natural environment, …and enhances the potential for government regulation of
private property.”
• “Bundles of rights” deemphasizes duties, individualizes, inadequate vision of
property as shared responsibility
• Web of interests: set of interconnections (relations) among persons, groups, and
entities each with some stake in the object, which is at the center of the web.
• Tenure arrangements governing natural resources fundamentally shape—and are
shaped by—the relations between people and the natural world, as well as
relations among people.
• Consider what can strengthen vs cut the web of interest

12. Types of Interests
▪ Overriding interests when a sovereign power (e.g., a state or a community) has the power
to allocate or reallocate
▪ Overlapping interests where several parties have different rights to the same parcel of land
(or water), e.g. fishers, irrigators, and hydropower operators with interests in a reservoir
▪ Complementary interests when different parties share the same interest in the same parcel
of land (or water), e.g. fishers and domestic water users with common interest in clean
water
▪ Competing interests when different parties contest the same interests in the same parcel of
land (or water)
“Common goals and a sense of a common stake in property should be emphasized
just as much as conflicts and tensions among interests.” (Arnold 2002)
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), 2002. Land Tenure and Rural Development. FAO Land Tenure
Studies No. 3. FAO, Rome.

13. Mentimeter
▪ Can you think of examples of complementary interests in water?
Summarize in a few words, e.g. “fishers and domestic users want
clean water”

14. Legal Pluralism
Recognize many sources of rights
▪ State law
▪ Project regulations
▪ “Customary” law
▪ Religious law
▪ Local norms
Interaction between legal frameworks

15. International
Religiou
s
State
Project
Local/
customar

16. Forum Shopping
Start with people’s experience with
access and control of resources
Individuals base their claims on
whichever legal framework will give
them the best hearing
Rights are negotiated, contested
Source of flexibility, change

17. The Case of Water
Physical nature of water:
▪ Mobile, fluid
▪ Fugitive
▪ Variable
▪ Inherent uncertainties
Multiple uses, values, meaning
▪ Necessary for life
▪ Many types of water law
▪ Dominant discourse changing

18. Fluid Water Rights
Inherent variability of resource
oDrought, floods, landslides
oYet stable water needed
oEcological uncertainty→ livelihood uncertainty
Situations change
oProjects, infrastructure changes
oGrowing demand, socioeconomic development
Need for flexibility
oTo local conditions
oTo change over time

19. Fluid Water Rights
Dynamic, flexible, negotiated
Embedded in social, political,
economic relationships
Often closely tied to other rights
Changes in any of these
relationships affect property rights

20. Examples
Dry seasons and years
Rebuilding systems
Expanding systems
Changing power and alliances
Intersectoral competition
Drinking water

21. Recommendations
Instead of seeking clear rules, coherent legal system--
• Recognize ambiguous rules, multiple systems
• Forum shopping gives scope for human agency to deal with
upheavals
Instead of trying to create/identify a single authority
• Recognize polycentric governance
• Rules, rights embedded in relationships
• Organizations need flexibility, adaptation
Instead of assuming local groups are equitable
• Power differences, social relations affect actualization of rights
• External laws (statutes, project rules) can provide basis for
claiming rights
• Affects bargaining power

22. Further Resources
Resources, Rights and Cooperation: A Sourcebook on Property Rights and
Collective Action for Sustainable Development
http://www.capri.cgiar.org/sourcebook.asp
▪ Arnold, C.A., 2002. The reconstitution of property: property as aweb of
interests. 26 Harvard Environmental Law Review 281.
▪ Hodgson, S., 2004. Land andwater—the rights interface. FAO Legal Papers
Online 36. http://www.fao.org/legal/prs-ol/lpo36.pdf
▪ Meinzen-Dick, R., and E. Mwangi. (2008). Cutting the web of interests:
Pitfalls of formalizing property rights. Land Use Policy 26(1): 36-43.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2007.06.003
▪ Schlager, E., Ostrom, E., 1992. Property rights regimes and natural
resources: a conceptual analysis. Land Economics 68 (3), 249–262.